Multi-Criteria Evaluation Model for Campus Disaster Resilience Under Extreme Climate Conditions ^†

Abstract

As global climate disasters become frequent, colleges and universities in disaster-prone areas are facing problems in disaster response and post-disaster recovery. Based on the theory of urban resilience, we case-studied nine universities in Conghua District, Guangzhou City, China, using the Delphi method and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP). We constructed a multi-criteria evaluation model for campus disaster prevention resilience under extreme climate conditions. By identifying 4 facets and 16 criteria, 9 colleges were ranked. The distance of the college from the city center, the terrain and natural environment of the college, the level of the college, and the ownership of the college affected their ranking The results of this study help campus managers and planners integrate campus resilience plans into campus planning, institutional regulations, campus site selection, and campus construction in the future.

1. Introduction

China is one of the countries with the most serious natural disasters in the world. There are a variety of disasters due to China’s wide geographical distribution. The disaster is characterized by a high frequency of occurrence, heavy losses, and high risks. The Lingnan region belongs to the East Asian monsoon climate zone with the characteristics of a subtropical marine monsoon climate, being sensitive to climate change. The Tropic of Cancer runs through the middle of the Lingnan region, leading to high temperatures and heavy rainfall. This is one of the regions in China with the most rainstorms and the longest flood season.

Heavy rains and floods in Guangdong occur mainly during the flood season from April to September, especially from late May to mid-June each year. This period coincides with the Dragon Boat Festival, commonly known as “Longzhou Water”. Because there are heavy rainfalls for several consecutive days during the “Longzhou Water” [1], serious flood disasters are occurring. Conghua is located in the rolling hills in the north of Guangzhou. In addition to heavy monsoon rainfall, short-term heavy rainfall also causes frequent flash floods. Large amounts of flood water carrying mud and sand quickly pass through the urban area, causing casualties, economic and crop damage, and varying degrees of damage to infrastructure for water conservancy, power supply, and communications.

On 22 May 2014, Guangzhou’s Conghua District was hit by extremely heavy rains, and the Liuxi River in Conghua suffered a flood that occurred once in 50 years. Liangkou, Wenquan, and other towns in Conghua were severely flooded, with 12,000 people affected and 7 houses collapsed. Four people died and four were missing. Colleges in Conghua were flooded, too. On 14 June 2019, Conghua suffered the biggest flood in 20 years. The heavy rainfall mainly affected Liangkou Town and Lutian Town. The hourly rainfall in Lutian Town reached 278 mm. Villagers from 10 villages around Lutian Town were relocated, and a large number of farmlands, orchards, fish ponds, and houses were flooded. On 11 May 2022, the heavy rainfall in a short period in the Lutian Town in the north of Conghua District broke the record for the largest rainfall in 20 years. The water levels of the Yuxi River and the Paer River rose rapidly, flooding a large number of houses along the river. Many colleges in Conghua were also affected by the floods.

Intensifying global climate changes contribute to the increase in the suddenness, anomaly, and complexity of natural disasters. China’s urban and rural disaster management is facing complex and severe challenges. Comprehensive prevention of natural disaster risks urgently needs to be strengthened [2]. At present, high-density and high-intensity urban development has led to increasingly close spatial and functional connections among urban systems, forming a huge and fragile urban complex network. Therefore, urban systems are extremely susceptible to internal and external disaster disturbances, triggering cascading failures and amplifying the impact and losses of disasters [3]. In addition, the frequency and intensity of disasters such as typhoons and rainstorms have increased significantly, and the uncertainty and challenges of disaster risks faced by cities have intensified. Under this severe situation, it is necessary to explore how to effectively deal with the coupling, superposition, secondary, and derivative effects of various disasters with urban disaster prevention plans [4]. Recently, the Chinese government issued the “Opinions on Promoting the Construction of New Urban Infrastructure to Build Resilient Cities”, which emphasized improving urban resilience against floods and disasters, promoting safe urban development, and improving urban sustainability.

2. Literature Review

Enhancing urban safety and resilience is important in urban development. Resilience is the ability of a city to resist disasters, mitigate losses, and properly allocate resources to recover quickly from disasters [5]. In the long term, cities can learn from past disasters and improve their adaptability to disasters. Compared with traditional disaster prevention and relief, resilience emphasizes separate elements to related coordination, independent systems to coupled systems, safety control to functional control, engineering technology to social sciences, politics, and economy, passive emergency response to forward decision-making, fighting alone to coordinated linkage, key areas to national participation, and passive learning to wisdom improvement [6].

China has experienced an urban development pattern dominated by central cities, urban agglomerations, and metropolitan areas. The high population, industry, and infrastructure densities have intensified the risks of natural disasters in cities and towns, and regional differences in the ability to withstand disaster risks have become increasingly significant. Under the guiding ideology of coordinating development and safety, China’s latest plan proposes to conform to the new concepts and trends of urban development, build resilient cities, enhance urban safety resilience, and promote modernized emergency management systems and capabilities. Emergency management is important in the national governance system and governance capabilities. Strengthening the emergency management system and capacity building is urgent but is a long-term task [7]. The cutting-edge concept of urban disaster prevention and relief and resilient cities has been widely recognized by the international community. Due to their advantages in full-process closed-loop management, building resilient cities is an important way to accelerate the modernization of emergency management systems and capabilities [8].

The framework of a disaster-resilient city is a multi-scale, strongly coupled network system formed by dynamically interweaving interdependent material environment systems and social network systems [9]. In a disaster-resilient city, hierarchical networks of different scales must be constructed in the environment and social network systems, which are nested from microscopic low-dimensional to macroscopic high-dimension. Building units, municipal infrastructure pipelines, road traffic, and residents form residential clusters in the form of functional, spatial, and social associations [10]. Multiple residential clusters are aggregated into communities or functional areas with the basic components of municipal infrastructure, road transportation, and ecological space in a functional, spatial, and socially related manner. Several communities or functional areas follow similar patterns to form a central city. Central cities form urban clusters in the economic flow, traffic flow, and ecological space. The network structures at all levels show similar organizational patterns and morphological characteristics. That is, multi-layer complex networks enable urban systems to wholly and locally demonstrate similar capabilities and resilience when facing disasters, thereby ensuring that urban systems can quickly adapt, adjust, and recover after being impacted [11].

The material network of a resilient city includes two major elements: the material and the social environment. The material environment comprises three categories: building facilities (including single buildings and building clusters), road transportation systems, and infrastructure systems. Building facilities are regarded as nodes in the network, and roads and infrastructure are regarded as edges with nodes. The material environment is abstracted in a complex multi-layer network system [12]. As a carrier of interaction between social groups and the material environment system, the social environment maintains the flow and distribution of information and resources and promotes the sharing and acquisition of resources by strengthening social ties between individuals and groups [13]. The social network system of the city consists of multiple subjects such as urban residents, enterprises, institutions, and government departments for functional land use. Disaster sociologists believe that long-term and stable social relations are crucial in disaster response, and that efficient coordination and response mechanisms between communities and departments are directly related to the effectiveness of social mobilization, the speed of information flow, and the post-disaster reconstruction process [14].

There has not been a consensus on the system framework of resilience. Scholars from urban planning, architecture, sociology, political science, management, and psychology have explained and discussed the concept of resilience from different professional perspectives. In this study, we constructed a multi-standard disaster prevention assessment model for campus spatial resilience from the perspective of grassroots governance. The model was used to evaluate the disaster prevention resilience index of university campuses in areas with multiple natural disasters. The model is important for campus planning and design, campus emergency management, the formulation of campus safety regulations, and the sorting out of campus culture. The model also encourages university managers to connect resilience thinking to modern campus governance.

3. Research Methods

3.1. Delphi Expert Method

In the Delphi expert consultation, we invited 15 experts, including university administrators, campus planning department leaders, professors of public administration, professors of urban planning and architecture, and experts from government disaster prevention and relief departments. All experts voluntarily participated in the research for three rounds of consultation. The experts rated the necessity of criteria through email distribution and set new options as secondary criteria by modifying and replacing inappropriate criteria. After collecting responses from the first questionnaire survey, the first round results of the expert consultation were analyzed to modify the questionnaire. Individually proposed criteria were revised to construct the initial criteria system. Then, the experts evaluate the new criteria. After the three rounds of consultation, four first-level facets and 16 second-level criteria were obtained (Figure 1).

3.2. AHP

In AHP, a pairwise comparison evaluation was conducted. The experts scored the criteria at nine levels and weighted them to determine the relative importance of each facet. The pairwise comparison matrix was constructed, and the consistency ratio (CR) of the matrix was calculated. The final weight calculation results are shown in

Table 1. Relative weight of identified criteria.

Level 1 Weight	Level 2 Weight	(Level 1 × 2) Weight	Sequence
Campus space disaster resilience (1-1)—0.4060	Special spatial planning for disaster prevention (2–1–1)—0.4617	0.1874	1
	Road Network For Emergency And Rescue (2–1–2)—0.0706	0.0287	11
	Emergency Shelters (2–1–3)—0.2909	0.1181	3
	Dedicated Emergency Escape Routes And Exits From Buildings (2–1–4)—0.1768	0.0718	6
Campus management disaster resilience (1-2)—0.3155	Emergency Funding (2–2–1)—0.5102	0.1610	2
	Emergency System Construction And Implementation (2–2–2)—0.2764	0.0903	5
	Emergency Management Capabilities (2–2–3)—0.1334	0.0421	9
	Real-Time Data Sharing And Collaboration (2–2–4)—0.0701	0.0221	12
Campus personnel safety resilience (1-3)—0.1543	Personnel Mobilization Capability (2–3–1)—0.5933	0.0915	4
	Disaster Prevention Education (2–3–2)—0.1420	0.0219	13
	Permanent Disaster Prevention Agency (2–3–3)—0.1903	0.0294	10
	Public Opinion Control (2–3–4)—0.0743	0.0115	16
Campus facilities disaster resilience (1-4)—0.1242	Building Facilities Quality (2–4–1)—0.3855	0.0479	7
	Escape And Rescue Facilities (2–4–2)—0.1604	0.0199	14
	Emergency Supplies Preparation (2–4–3)—0.0985	0.0122	15
	Water And Electricity Network Supply (2–4–4)—0.3555	0.0442	8
Total weight (Level 1 × 2) weight	1.00
Remark	(1) Level 1 (CR = 0.0813) (2) Level 1–1 (CR = 0.0907) (3) Level 1–2 (CR = 0.0968) (4) Level 1–3 (CR = 0.0821) (5) Level 1–4 (CR = 0.0800)

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3.3. Spatial Information

Spatial data display is an important part of the geographic information system (GIS). Using GIS software (Version 10.8), geographic spatial data were analyzed and processed to extract valuable information. ArcGIS was used to visualize spatial data in the form of maps. Maps displayed geographical spatial information and helped to understand the spatial relationships presented by the data. ArcGIS is widely used in urban planning, environmental protection, commercial site selection, spatial assessment, and other fields, helping users extract valuable information from geospatial data and make scientific decisions. In this study, we evaluated 12 criteria on nine colleges in Conghua District, Guangzhou, and ranked the results. The nine colleges included Guangzhou Engineering and Technology College (GEC), Guangzhou Medical College Conghua College (GMC), Guangzhou Nanfang College (GNC), Guangdong Water Resources and Electric Power College (GWE), South China Agricultural University Zhujiang College (SAC), Guangzhou Software College (GSC), Guangzhou Nanyang Polytechnic College (GNL), Guangzhou Urban Construction College (GCC), and Guangzhou Huaxia Vocational College (GHC).

4. Data and Analysis

4.1. Facets

Among the four facets at Level 1, campus space disaster resilience scored the highest (0.4060), which reflected the importance of flexibility and adaptability in spatial layout and functional configuration. This also indicated a necessity to improve the campus space information platform, strengthen the open sharing of campus space planning and information, provide a scientific basis for campus planning, and improve the spatial carrying capacity of the campus for disaster prevention and refuge space reservation.

The second highest score was observed in management disaster resilience (0.3155), which reflected the importance of rapid response and effective governance capabilities in emergencies. Therefore, it is necessary to promote the coordinated development of smart campus infrastructure and use modern information technologies, such as 5G and big data, to build an efficient and intelligent campus management system. The development improves the efficiency and safety of campus transportation, mobilizes resources, and implements effective rescue and recovery measures in disasters. At the same time, by improving the campus operation management service platform, the real-time sharing and collaborative linkage of campus operation data can be realized to enhance the overall management level and emergency response speed of the campus.

As the third most important facet, campus personnel safety resilience was selected (0.1543). The emphasis on campus resilience in the training and execution of grassroots organizations is necessary to educate and train the grassroots organizational units of the campus to help them establish response efficiency for emergencies. The coordination and cooperation of various grassroots organizational units are significant for the rapid response and subsequent recovery of emergencies. The disaster resilience of campus facilities was scored 0.1242, which reflected the ability of infrastructure to maintain the normal operation of basic functions and recover quickly from damages. It is necessary to implement the construction and transformation of intelligent municipal infrastructure, digitally upgrade and intelligently manage key systems such as water supply, drainage, power supply, and gas, and ensure that these infrastructures can still operate stably in emergencies.

4.2. Criteria

Among the 16 criteria at Level 2, spatial planning for disaster prevention scored the highest (0.1874). This indicated the role of redundancy in a resilient campus. The key functional facilities on campus must have backup modules. When a disaster occurs suddenly and causes damage to the functions of some facilities, the backup modules need to be supplemented in time so that the entire system can function without paralysis. Then, investment in emergency funds scored high (0.1610), showing the importance of the economic dimension in campus resilience. The investment in emergency funds contributes to the reduction in economic losses caused by disasters and alleviates the impact of disasters on economic activities. Economic losses include property losses caused by the destruction of houses and infrastructure, materials, and daily necessities due to disasters, as well as losses caused by the suspension and obstruction of campus economic activities due to disasters.

The third highest score was given to emergency shelter (0.181), which reflected the value of the social dimension of campus resilience. To reduce casualties in disasters, emergency medical services and temporary shelters are required to meet the teaching and living needs of the campus during the long-term recovery process. Mobilization capability (0.0915) was ranked fourth, as the importance of adaptability in campus resilience was emphasized. The campus can learn from past disasters and improve its ability to adapt to disasters. The construction and implementation of emergency systems (0.0903) was regarded as an important value in campus resilience. Institutions or departments including the campus disaster emergency office, infrastructure system-related departments, and fire departments need to respond quickly after the disaster, to carry out house and building maintenance work, control the connection status of infrastructure systems, and reduce the degree of interruption of campus functions after the disaster. The sixth criterion in the ranking was the dedicated emergency escape routes and exits (0.0718), aligning with previous studies proving the importance of this important escape facility in emergency rescue.

Building facility quality was scored 0.0479. Good building structure shows the robustness of campus resilience, which will reduce the economic, social, personnel, material, and other losses of the campus caused by disasters. Water and electricity network and supply (0.0442) reflected the importance of the technical dimension of campus resilience to reduce the physical damage to building complexes and infrastructure systems in disasters. Infrastructure system losses refer to the interruption of services provided by systems including transportation, energy, and communications. Emergency management capabilities were scored 0.0421, representing resourcefulness. The capability ensures the basic disaster relief resources and the ability to reasonably allocate resources to optimize decisions and maximize resource benefits under limited resources. The necessity of a permanent disaster prevention agency (0.0294) reflected the resilience of the campus to ensure the ability to recover the campus function in a short time after a disaster. The road network for emergency and rescue was scored 0.0287, which indicated the importance of spatial network in campus resilience because it affects the efficiency and time of rescue and evacuation. Real-time data sharing and collaboration (0.0221) presented the importance of information integration and information collaboration in campus resilience. Disaster prevention education (0.0219) indicated the importance of daily personnel training for the implementation of campus resilience. Escape and rescue facilities were scored 0.0199, showing the important value of emergency evacuation for disaster resilience under extreme weather conditions. Emergency supplies preparation (0.0122) and public opinion control (0.0115) were selected as the important conditions for campus resilience in the recovery period and information dissemination in public during the disaster events.

5. Discussion

The closer the colleges are to the center of Conghua City, the more complete their infrastructure, the higher their degree of informatization, the higher their scores in space resilience, facility resilience, and management resilience, and the easier it is to reflect a higher comprehensive resilience score (Figure 2). In terms of geographical location, colleges located in mountainous areas with large terrain fluctuations are more likely to suffer from flood disasters caused by extreme weather, while colleges and universities located in plain areas are more likely to obtain higher comprehensive resilience scores due to smaller terrain fluctuations. The government-owned college can have more funding support and a better emergency response system. Their management resilience scores were higher, too. As far as the level of the college is concerned, four-year colleges have more complete campus planning and systematic functional departments. The higher the score in spatial resilience and management resilience, the easier it is to have higher resilience. Vocational colleges need to be more resilient with appropriate support.

6. Conclusions

The facets and criteria of campus resilience were identified in technical, organizational, social, and economic dimension. In the four dimensions, we constructed an integrated multi-standard assessment model to evaluate campus disaster resilience. The five characteristics of campus resilience were identified, including robustness, rapidity, redundancy, resourcefulness, and adaptability. The results aligned with the theory of urban resilience. The constructed model in this study can be used in the evaluation of campus resilience of colleges and universities in areas prone to natural disasters, helping campus managers and planners integrate campus resilience into future campus planning, institutional regulations, campus location selection, and campus construction.